The Evolution of the Japanese Strategic Imagination and Generation Change: A Generationally-Focused Analysis of Public and Elite Attitudes towards War and Peace in Japan

Abstract

A significant post-Cold War development in Japan’s politics has been the rise of a group of hawkish security elites with substantial political and institutional influence. A common scholarly and popular narrative that has accompanied this development is that the younger generation in Japan is more open to the pursuit of security on the basis of realpolitik attitudes in particular, and that this will lead to the Japanese government abandoning its postwar antimilitarist security orientation. By systematically examining these claims, this study evaluates whether generational change will become a salient factor that will challenge Japan’s traditional antimilitarism and drive radical change in Japan’s security policy orientation. Members of the Heisei social generation, born between 1965 and 1989, are the core focus of this study. Members of this Heisei cohort witnessed significant change in Japan’s foreign and domestic policy environments during their formative years when political socialisation is likely to have the greatest impact upon attitude formation. Using the concept of militant internationalismas an analytical framework, this study evaluates quantitative data on public attitudes and primary interview data to identify any notable overlap in attitudes towards national security between the Heisei cohort and Japan’s hawkish security elites. This study rejects the militant internationalist characterisation by showing that the Heisei public cohort continues to support military restraints on Japan’s security policy and military posture. The analysis of attitudes does reveal, nevertheless, that antimilitarism is no longer an appropriate descriptive label to apply to the contemporary security identity embraced by the Heisei cohort. The assumption of Japanese having an instinctive aversion to the use of military tools for maintaining Japan’s security no longer holds, particularly in relation to the Heisei elite cohort. In deepening the analysis, this study does show, however, that a distinctive but evolved anti-war peace nation identity is still salient among both the Heisei public and elite cohorts. Such an identity will continue to play a notable role in restraining Japan’s evolution as a military actor in regional and global affairs, particularly in regards to Japan being able to use force inside the territory of other nations.